It’s Langley Ridgemont appreciation hours.
Langley is Her. She is the boss. She is the moment. She is the only woman (heck, the only PERSON) intimidating enough to put Max freakin’ Blunder in his place. She’s incredibly intelligent and perceptive. She’s quite level-headed considering the world just got turned upside down. She’ll put her own life on the line to protect her people and is a wiz with a rapier. She does not suffer fools; and yet she has a remarkable amount of patience with Mr. Wizard and Max, our party’s certifiable fools.
She cares about Max, in her own stern and unemotional way. I get the sense that she had high hopes for him and was rather let down by his irresponsible behavior. “You’re an asset to me, Blunder. I don’t like when my investments go running off.” She poured a lot into him. Time. Money. Resources. Wouldn’t Rufus’ talents be better suited elsewhere, teaching the next generation of eager spellcasters and acrobats, rather than wasting his time training up a cranky, disrespectful flunkie who’d rather do anything but attend to his studies?? But Rufus believed in Max. He knew that the boy had potential. And judging by the fact that Langley let Rufus keep on teaching him—so did she.
I see Langley as emblematic of the kind of environment Max grew up in. Not a cruel one, but high-pressure for sure. The amount of expectations placed on Max’s shoulders as the only known Halfling-Goliath to exist must have been suffocating to a free spirit like him. It’s a wonderfully nuanced situation that Pix and Grian have created here, in which no one is fully in the right and no one is fully in the wrong; despite being born there, the circus just wasn’t right for Max. And he wasn’t right for it.
Langley does not treat Max with kid gloves. She scolds him—and rightfully so—for his flighty, selfish, irresponsible, and hedonistic behavior. But despite the severity of her words, she is not unkind to Max. She is honest. She does not turn him away. She shares what information she can. She answers frankly but not harshly when he asks about his parents, and she is the one who suggests—of her own volition, with no prompting whatsoever—that he should go see Rufus, one last time.
I love that moment in particular. It’s a tiny crack of kindness and humanity in her otherwise stern, austere shell. She knew that Rufus cared about Max. She knew that Max cared about Rufus. She is not a gentle person herself, and probably isn’t the best one to break the news. But she can gently nudge him in that direction. The old man will be able to handle everything else.
It strikes me, too, that after everything, Langley is still willing to work with Max to help save the world. Provided, of course, that a) he is actually interested in helping and b) he proves that she can trust him.
The first part—that it’s Max’s decision to help—is important. Langley doesn’t try to force him to do anything. She doesn’t have him arrested by the guards or threaten him with punishment if he doesn’t obey. She doesn’t say “you’re mine, and you will do what I say.” She simply offers him a choice. A choice to either grow up, sober up, and address the problem facing them all, or go giddily skipping off into the rainbow sunset like he did before. If he chooses to do the latter, she can’t stop him, and she knows it. But she’s giving him the chance to be better, for once.
The second part—that he proves that she can trust him—is equally important. He’s betrayed her before. He’s squandered everything she gave him and run off without a trace. But despite having every reason to write him off as a lost cause, she hasn’t given up on him yet. She’s willing to work with him. As long as it concerns her people and the fate of the world, she’ll take all the allies she can get; even the ones who have stung her in the past.
He needs to prove that her trust in him won’t return void again. There are more important things at stake now than just one boy’s circus career. This is the fate of the world we’re talking about. She cannot afford to entrust it to an irresponsible fool. She needs to know that Max is not still the same selfish little boy that he was when he ran away into the great blue yonder.
And luckily for her, and the world at large: he isn’t.
Max impresses her, in that battle in the clearing. And she’s not too proud, after everything they’ve been through, to give him his due. She watches him take down both a Wight and a Bone Naga. She applauds the Guiding Bolt that saves her life. “Well done, Blunder! Now watch this!” She falls into step, fighting side-by-side with her wayward protégé, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
And after the battle, she apologizes for her harsh treatment, and tells him the simple truth:
“You’ve more than proven yourself.”
Max is not the same boy that ran away from the circus. He’s not who she expected him to be; but maybe he’s becoming something even better.
He’s not quite where he should be yet. Not by a long shot. He’s got more to learn, much more. But he’s grown, since she last saw him.
No, he cannot call her Langers. But he can call her a friend.
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tangentwithtanner
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